


If You Go Away

by jonesyslug



Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst, Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-11-09 00:22:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20844479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonesyslug/pseuds/jonesyslug
Summary: Richie can't sleep. He can't remember the last time he really has slept. Everything has been a blur since he got back from Derry.





	If You Go Away

**Author's Note:**

> Yes I did name this fic after a fucking New Kids on The Block song. Why did I write this fic at all when all my other fics are about everyone living and coping and being happy, ECT? Because I'm having a lot of emotions and my main excuse is that tomorrow is my birthday, so let me do what I fucking want. 
> 
> Anyway, tw: for suicidal thoughts, but they aren't graphic.

_ "The world's a little blurry, or maybe it's my eyes. The friends I've had to bury, they keep me up at night." _

* * *

Richie laid awake, his alarm clock blinking out evil, red numbers. 3:45 am. God, he never fucking slept anymore. 

How could he? He remembered everything now. He didn't want to remember _ shit. _He was pissed off at himself, only ever having met Stan's wife after he was dead, and what the hell could he say to her, now? Hadn't talked to Stan in nearly thirty years… Thirty god damned years, he didn't even remember his fucking best friend. So what had he done after the funeral? He had said nothing, gotten in a cab, and gone to the airport. Left Patricia Blum Uris sobbing in the front row. 

It was like Stan's bar mitzvah, he was the only one of the losers there. Sitting in the audience, alone, alone, _ alone, _wearing that thin little yarmulke they handed out at those events. It was laying on his dresser now. He wasn't allowed to forget this time, no matter how much he wanted to. 

He groaned and turned away from the clock. Fucking hell, _ fucking hell _ , at least he hadn't had to _ watch _ Stan die. Sometimes his horrid brain would imagine it, but that was all it was, imagination. It wasn't the lingering, putrid memories of holding Eddie as his life dripped out of him. The fucking bruises he'd had on his arms where- god, he didn't even know _ who- _had been holding him back while the house on Neibolt street crumbled and took his heart with it. 

God, he just wanted- he wanted to be happy for his friends. It burned when he got a wedding invitation from Ben and Beverly. How fucking selfish was he? They'd found something good in the middle of the worst thing that had happened to all of them. They'd found something nice and managed to make it work, and it made him want to throw up. He was sick with himself for being jealous. That never would have been him and Eddie anyway. Eddie had a wife. Eddie had his own fucking life far away from Richie and he had for a long time. No… nothing about Richie could change that. Dead or alive, Eddie was never his. But fuck- if he was still alive, would it hurt this bad? 

If he was still alive, Richie might be able to- maybe he'd be able to learn to deal with it. And fuck, at least he'd still hear his voice. Still get to see him smile. Fuck, fuck, _ fuck. _

Richie grabbed his pillow and slammed it over his face. He was tired of crying. How many nights was he going to be up crying? Did Bill cry like this? Mike? Anyone? 

They'd _ all _ lost Stan and Eddie but… shit, Bill had a wife. He had someone to hold him when the shit got bad. And Mike… Mike had never forgotten them. Mike didn't have to live with the guilt and the _ what ifs _ of forgetting. 

_ No, you're not alone in this, it's hard for everyone. _

That made him feel worse. It was so selfish to think that- that he would be having a harder time than anyone else. 

But he felt like he had been ripped open. Every night, the sun went down and his brains spilled out of his ears and he cried, cried, cried and didn't sleep. Every morning the sun came up and the bags under his eyes got deeper and he fell asleep in cabs and cafés and meetings because everything was too much, and no one mentioned it for a while- they left him alone for a while- and then his producer, with no mercy, had told him to get his shit together and stop showing up stinking of booze. 

Things didn't change much, there was just more in the rituals now. Make sure the clothes he put on were clean. Dry shampoo for his hair. Brush his teeth. Pop some Adderall so he wasn't a fucking zombie. But he didn't stop drinking, he didn't start sleeping, he just got better at hiding all of it. 

He could see his trajectory. He was going to crash and burn, and no one would bat an eye. Just another comedian that went off the fucking rails on booze and pills and washed up in a gutter. They'd give him maybe a minute or so in TMZ when he got shipped off to rehab, if he was even lucky enough to make it to rehab. 

He tore the pillow from his face. He hadn't realized he couldn't breathe until his reflexes kicked in. He got out of bed, then looked down at it. Why was his bed so fucking big? He cursed at it, then walked to the kitchen and opened the fridge. 

Water. Beer. No food. 

Freezer. Tequila. Rum. One beef and broccoli dinner. Fuck it. 

He slammed the fridge closed and pulled out the rum and the frozen dinner. He didn't read the box, whatever, like he hadn't had this same exact meal a thousand times before? Like it wasn't automatic. That was all he could do now: automatic. Muscle memory. 

The microwave hummed to life and he poured the rum. He stared at the glass for a long moment, then brought the bottle to his lips, instead. It was a sloppy pull, it dribbled out of his mouth and down his chin, it left huge, damp spots on his thin shirt, and his new motto popped into his head again. _ Fuck it. _

He put the rum back in the freezer and sat down in one of his stupid looking, minimalist design chairs. God, his loft was so fucking empty. Devoid of life. There was just… nothing. Big windows instead of walls so there was no real privacy out here, and who gave a fuck? Everyone knew he was in the shit on some level, after he cancelled his tour. 

The microwave beeped, and he didn't even notice what he was doing until he was angrily chewing a limp piece of broccoli, then chucking the barely touched meal into the garbage bin. He downed the rum in one shot and threw the glass away too, for good measure. He ignored the loud crash of it breaking and wandered back into his room. 

Somehow, the time had not fucking passed at all. It was only 4:30 now. He let his body go limp and fell back into the bed. He wished he could ask Stan- ask him what it felt like, was there any peace in it, what happened afterwards? Did he get to rest in the darkness of nothing, or was something waiting for them on the other side of the knife? If he could just _ know- _if he could just be sure that it would all really end, or that he'd get to see Eddie and Stan after… if one of those things was certain, he wouldn't even hesitate. 

But here he was, every day, thinking these same things and hesitating. How fucked up would it be if he just- could he do that to his friends? Could he do that to his sister and his niece? The world was so much bigger than Eddie fucking Kaspbrak but it didn't feel like it, anymore. How stupid was that? Ruining his life over someone he barely thought about for 27 years. 27 years! That was most of his life! Much longer than the time he'd actually _ known _Eddie. 

God, he was crying again. Again, again, again. He looked at the clock and tried to remember what the time difference was on the East Coast. He wanted to call Bev. God, he just wanted to talk to her, she was always the one who knew what to say to him. But when he thought about it- her all curled up in Ben's arms, sleeping with a smile on her face, finally feeling some peace in her hurricane of a life, and getting a weepy early morning phone call from her childhood friend, drunk from a compounding day's worth of ill-advised drinks and still not a tick calmer than he'd been the day Eddie had actually died… 

He couldn't do that to her. Couldn't do that to any of the people who would actually know what the fuck he'd gone through and why he was such a mess. 

He picked up his phone anyway, scrolling through his contacts. No one jumped out at him. No one seemed like an appropriate ear for his woes. He opened his texts instead. _ Fuck it. _ Maybe it would all sound crazy and stupid and selfish. But he couldn't just keep _ doing _this. He couldn't just sit on his hands and wait for life to crash down around him, crush him completely. He couldn't just stay in one place until the fuse finally burned down and he was standing on a ledge, staring at a rope, a razor, whatever. The world was bigger than Eddie Kaspbrak, even if his heart didn't know it. 

He looked at the last text in the conversation. It was a month old. His therapist asking him when he was coming back. He typed a quick reply, that he wanted to see her as soon as he could, and put his phone back on the nightstand. 

He rolled over in bed. Ben and Bev's wedding was coming up soon. He wasn't going to ruin their wedding with his contagious grief. He was going to learn how to play nice for the day. To be really happy for them, because he fucking _ was. _ Because he was a damn groomsmen, and he was going to smile in the pictures and he was going to laugh and tell jokes because they were his friends, and they knew, even if he still felt like he couldn't tell them- they knew he was hurting. And he just wanted to be with them, and let that make him feel good. No asterisks or underscores. Nothing bitter or jealous left in him that day. Because that wasn't right. Because Stan and Eddie belonged to the rest of them just as much as they belonged to him, and they were _ all go _ing to be feeling that important seats were empty. He wasn't alone. 

Not alone, not alone, _ not alone. _

He sat up and grabbed his phone again, he was crying but it didn't matter. He had to let that all out. Fuck the tears, they weren't going anywhere. 

It took him a few tries, but he finally typed it correctly. 

_ I love you guys. _

His phone buzzed two seconds later. 

_Bill:_ _Love you too, Richie. _

A louder than usual sob left him and he threw himself back onto the bed. He was all bitter and burning inside, but he didn't have to be, forever. He wasn't going to be. He needed to come back down to earth. He needed to be a good friend, a good brother, a good uncle. He needed to be good. Good, good, _ good. _

His phone buzzed. 

_ Ben: love ya. why r u up so early, richie? _

Richie stared at his phone for a moment. Ben kept typing, then stopping. Richie had no idea what to say, and figured Ben didn't either. 

_ Full moon. Makes me crazy. _

Idiot. What a stupid response. Everyone was going to know, something was wrong. That he was a big, broken mess who had been insisting that fixing anything was irreverent to the wounds that were tearing him open, getting infected, worse by the minute. 

Richie closed his eyes and took a deep breath. His heart was racing. The last thing he'd wanted was to disrupt Ben and Beverly. Ben was still typing. 

Then his phone started buzzing steadily. Not a text, a phonecall. 

_ Ben Haystack Hanscom _

Richie took a deep breath and knew he had to answer. Ben already knew he was up. 

"Ben!" He answered, a stupid smile plastered on his face, like someone was watching. 

"Hey, Rich." Ben's voice was soft. 

"Bev still asleep?" 

"Yeah, but uh… I'm drinking coffee on the front porch so, you know uh, don't worry about being loud." 

There was a long, quiet moment. Richie felt intensely grateful that Ben had called him, but had no idea what he was supposed to do with the opportunity.

"Richie, you still there?" 

Richie couldn't hide anymore, it was in his voice, the lump in his throat holding back his sobs. Dam about to burst. 

"Y-yeah, Ben. I'm still here." He said, breaking at the end. There it was. Big, angry sobs, ripping themselves from his throat harder and harder the more he tried to hold them back. 

"Richie… I love you, Richie." 

"I love you, Ben." He stopped his lip from trembling. "I'm so fucking sorry I'm such a mess, I don't know what I'm doing." 

"It's okay, Richie. None of us know what we're doing." Richie could hear that Ben was crying, too. Fuck, he'd ruined Ben's morning. But he needed Ben. Maybe Ben needed him, too. 

He found a little break in his sobs. "Ben?" 

"Yeah?" 

"Tell me something." 

"What?" 

Richie sighed. "Anything, as long as it's good." He swallowed thickly. "You can make shit up if you want, I just want to hear you talk for a minute. Talk or sing or- I just want to listen to your voice. I know it sounds stupid, I just-" 

"It's not stupid, Richie. I get it." Ben paused to think. "Okay… okay. Well, uh," Ben sniffled, then laughed a little bit. "Okay, I've got something." 

"Go for it." 

Ben took a deep breath, then started singing quietly. 

"_ I know I hurt you. That's the last thing I meant to do…" _

Richie gave a small, genuine smile and settled back onto his pillows. For all that life had taken from him, he still had friends, and he was going to be good for them, because they were good to him. 

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah so the song Ben was singing, if it's not obvious, was If You Go Away by NKOTB. As a side note, I am a big fan of New Kids. That has nothing to do with anything but I'm just putting this out there: I'm a gay man and I love boy bands, tomorrow is my birthday and I'm having a crisis about it so I can say whatever stupid shit I want right here. Thank you for reading this, if you did actually read it, and if you skipped down to the notes at the bottom before reading... Who the hell are you? What's your deal? 
> 
> Really random: beef and broccoli frozen dinner is a reference to You're Killing Me, and the whole singing on the phone thing was inspired by the Inside No. 9 episode "Cold Comfort". The quote at the begining is from the Billie Eilish song "ilomilo".
> 
> Anyway comments are not only appreciated, they're encouraged. Even if it's just a keysmash or an emoji. Just put something in that little box and send it. It'll make me happy.


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